Aerumnus
by sapphireswimming
Summary: Dani runs into trouble wherever she goes.


**I've randomly been thinking about Dani lately, especially during the time between Kindred Spirits and D-Stabalized. And this scene sort of materialized out of nowhere.**

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**Aerumnus**

_Adj, full of trouble_

May 22, 2014

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Dani waited for activity to pick up in the bar. Once the staff was sufficiently occupied with other (paying) customers, she slid through the crowd, making herself as inconspicuous as possible. Pushing the door open with a shoulder, she made her way out into the crisp night air.

Her breath fogged. Colorless. No ghosts here. Just a fall evening that was starting to look more and more like winter with every passing minute.

She shoved her hands down into the pockets of her jacket. Not deep enough for this weather. Ghosts, she imagined, didn't feel the cold. Broke unsuccessful clones did.

But she wasn't going back to home sweet home so it was out into the night she went, looking for someplace to stay. Someplace open, hopefully, or with a lock she could pick. Her skills in that department were developing nicely, but there was still only so much she could do without dipping into her ghostly powers. That just happened to make her disintegrate a bit more every time she turned a hand intangible to swipe a hotel room key. Lucky her.

Luckier still that two men exited the building less than a minute after she did and loitered outside the door, the glow from the neon beer advertisements in the window telling her that they looked her way.

Dani turned and walked away, forcing herself not to look behind her to see if they followed. They might have just been stopping to share a cigarette. She must have been a strange sight coming out of a bar underage and underdressed. Perhaps they had just been wondering what she was doing there. Not where she was going.

A shiver worked its way up her neck as she made her pace and heading deliberate. But she didn't need to turn around to know that both men were following her. Flicking her eyes around to see what options she had, Dani decided to continue until the building ended and then turned to her right.

Instead of taking her toward the open downtown, however, the street began to become more crowded. Buildings built practically on top of each other, dumpsters taking up the non existent space in the streets so that she needed to weave through them and passing with a vehicle would be impossible. Nothing was down this road but decrepit buildings with crumbling cement between the bricks.

If the two men had a destination in mind when they started walking, they would have continued on straight past her turn.

They didn't.

Peering around the corner, they turned into the alley after her. Skirting around one set of trash cans and then another. Time to decide what course of action she would take.

Hide. But they knew she was here and would keep coming until they found her. Run. As a human she couldn't outrun them. As a ghost… well. She'd just have to see how sticky she was willing to get by the end of the night. Keeping her feet intact would be ideal. The oozing green footprints, besides being gross and draining her of ectoplasm that really should have been staying _inside _her system, attracted attention. And she certainly wouldn't have the energy to leave town after that.

The two men were coming up to the last dumpster now. She'd spent too much time thinking.

Playing it by ear it was.

She stepped out from her place in the corner, planted her feet and faced them. Both stopped and looked at her, sizing her up.

"Really, guys?" she asked. "Cornering a kid in a back alley? Good for you."

They smiled and the taller of the two laughed.

"Feisty, huh?"

"Gon' be fun," the other one chuckled back.

Dani didn't really think so when he pulled a box cutter out of his pocket and audibly clicked the blade up to its highest point.

She didn't move as he lurched forward, brandishing his weapon in a way that might have looked much more threatening to someone else. Still, blades were things to be avoided and he was still coming toward her.

At least his partner in crime had stayed where he was. Two burly men at once was a little above her capacity at the moment, but one drunk guy with a knife? She might be able to handle that.

So she shifted her stance ever so discreetly as he closed the distance between them, trying to look like she wasn't preparing to jab out with a stiff hand to make him drop his weapon before following up with the base of her palm straight into his nose as soon as he doubled over from a knee between the legs.

Neither of them saw it coming and, unstable and unready as he was, she was able to take him down despite the significant difference in size and strength. He collapsed on the dirty pavement, groaning and holding a freely bleeding face.

After making sure that the other man wasn't yet running toward her, Dani took a second to lash out with a foot and kick his head against the cement. There was a crack and he slid silently to the ground.

The box cutter had broken against the brick wall. The unconscious man still gripped the handle in his bloodied hand but the snapped off blade lay at Dani's feet, glinting in the light of a far off streetlamp.

She slowly bent down to pick it up, fingers trying to find a balance between finding purchase on the thin metal and not slicing her hand open. Finally raising it up in front of her, she caught a glimpse of the tall man's face. Red. Swollen. Contorted with rage and disbelief and too much alcohol.

He made a sort of growling noise and that was the only warning she had before he charged. Not that she needed any more than that. She already knew what she was going to do and didn't bother to do more than sidestep at the last minute.

Then she reached out the hand with the blade. And used a spark of intangibility for the briefest of moments, hoping that she would stay in one piece and heaving a sigh of relief when she could wiggle her toes and still feel them as entities distinct from shoes and socks that had begun oozing together.

Dani stepped away to face the man who had come to an immediate halt as soon as she had touched him. He tried to turn toward her, but stopped before he'd twisted his torso an inch, face contorting in pain.

"What…?" he gasped, looking up from his half hunched position.

"What?" she parroted as she once more put her hands in her pockets.

"What… did you do to me?"

Dani took a deep breath and watched it turn into fog in the cold air. "That box cutter you were going to use on me? That's inside you right now. Turn about is fair play. Pleasant isn't it?" she asked as he made a thin sound in the back of his throat. "So do yourself a favor and don't move. Or, you know, do the world a favor and give me fifty jumping jacks."

"What can I… what am I going to do?" he pleaded hoarsely.

"Die, I imagine," Dani shrugged. "At some point. If you don't want it to be this very moment, then I suggest waiting for your buddy over there to wake up and letting him call for an ambulance," she nodded to the bleeding figure still out cold. "Too bad this alleyway's so deserted, though, and no one would be able to hear you call for help," she lamented solemnly, scuffing her shoe carelessly on the loose gravel and grime at her feet. "Even if you did manage to get out more than a whisper."

As he realized how badly off he really was, the man began to curse at her, but only got a few words into his rant before he realized that shouting used the muscles around which the deadly metal was embedded.

"See?" she said.

"You're crazy," the man said, voice back to a whisper.

"Me, crazy?" she laughed. "Oh no," she denied. "I'm just a tiny little girl that you decided to… not rob in a dark alley. Who _happened _to be raised by one truly twisted up fruitloop." Dani paused for a minute to reminisce about the days she was all too happy to have put behind her, even if this was the alternative. "Bet you guys would have gotten along great. But," she continued. "Enough of that. I should be going. And leave you to your slowly freezing to death with a knife in your gut."

She stepped backwards, edging toward her escape route while keeping an eye on the man until the last possible moment. His eyes were wide and he looked as if he were weighing the pros and cons of hyperventilating or calling for help. Measuring his chances of survival if he tried to attack her before she left. Without a weapon. She smiled when he seemed to come to the realization that self preservation advised he stay exactly where he was.

"Hopefully I don't see you around," she tossed over her shoulder as she turned and walked away into the night.

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**Uh, yeah, so a little dark. The "do yourself a favor" line was how this all started. :/**


End file.
